Former Rep. Matt Gaetz is facing additional allegations of sex trafficking by two women who filed a civil lawsuit against him and two other men in federal court Thursday.
The women, identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, are accusing Gaetz, former Florida state Rep. Chris Dorworth and Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, of “recruitment and sexual exploitation” from 2017 through January 2019 — while Gaetz was a sitting member of Congress. The lawsuit relies in part on a House Ethics Committee report that concluded Gaetz paid roughly a dozen women for sex between 2017 and 2020.
The plaintiffs’ complaint also draws from Greenberg’s plea agreement, in which he acknowledged engaging in commercial sex acts with the minor described in the complaint as “Victim A” and “introduc[ing] the Minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts with the Minor in the Middle District of Florida.” Greenberg is serving an 11-year federal prison sentence in Florida on sex trafficking and fraud convictions.
The accusers allege Gaetz and Greenberg “coordinated the recruitment, payments, drugs, and travel to obtain commercial sexual acts from young women,” and accuse Dorworth of “knowingly” participating.
The 38-page complaint, filed in the Middle District Court of Florida, describes the defendants as “men of power, wealth, and privilege who used their positions not to protect the vulnerable but to prey upon them.” The complaint states that one of the women was 20 years old when she met Gaetz, now 44, and that the other was 22 when she first met Greenberg, now 42.
In a statement provided to the Miami Herald, which first reported the news on Thursday, Gaetz called the allegations “false” and added that the lawsuit “relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance.”
Dorworth did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment Thursday. A lawyer for Greenberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit also names as defendants three companies allegedly owned and run by Greenberg’s family, which it says “supplied the money that funded these illicit acts,” including for drugs and travel, and money to the women directly. The plaintiffs are suing under federal laws aimed at combating sex trafficking and are demanding a jury trial.
Civil lawsuits under the federal sex trafficking statute require that the plaintiffs prove, among other elements, that the defendants engaged in commercial sex acts and used fraud, force or coercion. The women who filed the lawsuit Thursday allege that the defendants defrauded and coerced them by paying them irregularly or less than promised; keeping them in a state of financial instability and dependency; supplying them with drugs; and conditioning their access to “outings and privileges” based on their performance of sexual acts for Gaetz. Each says she believed she would suffer “serious financial harm” if she stopped performing the sex acts.
Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress in November 2024, when then-President-elect Donald Trump announced he would nominate him for attorney general. But Gaetz withdrew from consideration for that position after facing mounting scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations, which he denied. Since then, he has worked as a host at the right-wing One America News Network.
Gaetz was also the subject of a Department of Justice investigation, but it was closed in 2023 without any charges. At the time, public reporting stated that DOJ lawyers were concerned about the credibility of several witnesses if the case went to trial.
Civil lawsuits under the federal sex trafficking statute must be filed no later than 10 years after the alleged trafficking, assuming the victim was 18 years old or older at the time. Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, as well as family members of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, have advocated for “Virginia’s Law,” a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for claims like those brought by the women who filed the suit against Gaetz.
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